Inside Report (1)

July 31, 1981

Is debt-ridden Poland about to look to the West for help again, this time to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank? Signs multiply that it is. Tentative talks with these two institutions have been going on quietly for almost a year. Informed opinion in Warsaw has it that IMF assistance alone can help Poland and that the regime is steadily moving toward this option. Given the magnitude of Polish debts to the West, the reasoning goes, the Soviets would not object. And a top financial-monetary expert, Zygmunt Krolak, has come out openly in favor of IMF membership.

The Poles apparently believe the fund will be more "understanding," asking fewer restrictive conditions than US German, and Fre nch bankers.m